Linear tape drives are widely used for computer backup and archiving. A linear tape drive includes a magnetic tape head that reads and writes magnetic tape linearly, such that data on the magnetic tape is read and/or written in sequence along the length of the magnetic tape. Multiple channels of data may be written to, and read from, the magnetic tape in parallel using multiple elements on the magnetic tape head. Occasionally, failures may occur when attempting to access the data on the tape. If a failure occurs, then the tape is repositioned and a retry is initiated in an attempt to access the data. Some retries may take as long as thirty seconds to perform, meaning that the data recovery process can be very time-consuming.